Puerto Rico trip won't woo Latinos

President Barack Obama’s visit to Puerto Rico Tuesday is the first official visit by a president in 50 years. Many observers have rightfully surmised that this trip is more about the Puerto Ricans in the mainland than on the island — particularly the fast-growing Puerto Rican population in Florida.

You see, Obama has a Latino problem. To win reelection, he needs the Latino vote. But Latinos have become increasingly frustrated with the president’s inaction on immigration.

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Obama must now view Puerto Ricans as his way to win some of the Latino vote without having to address his dismal deportation record and his muted response to states’ attacks on immigrants. But what the president apparently fails to grasp is that the unsolved immigration crisis affects all Latinos — regardless of their legal status.

Puerto Ricans are in the same situation as the other 32 million U.S. Latino citizens who confront the growing anti-Latino attitudes that have become part of our immigration discourse.

In a country with a dysfunctional immigration system, the fight over immigration reform has real-world consequences. Radio talk show hosts and local politicians paint Latino immigrants as criminals. Hate crimes against Latinos are up 45 percent since 2003, according to the FBI. It could be that these hate crimes are underreported — Latinos are often hesitant to interact with law enforcement these days — and that the actual statistics are likely much higher.

There are many good reasons for immigration reform, including protecting the millions of children who grew up in the United States, know no other country and through no fault of their own lack residency documents. While our immigration system clearly affects immigrants and their families, it is also directly hurting millions of U.S. citizens who happen to be Latino, including Puerto Ricans.

Yet, in the past few years, immigration reform has stalled, and rhetoric against immigrants has become more toxic. States like Arizona and Alabama have passed tough deportation laws. Thousands of U.S. citizens have been detained, according to a study by Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University, and in some cases, even deported.

Some stunning cases involve non-Latinos. Consider Mark Lyttle, a North Carolinian with a history of mental illness, who was detained, processed and forced to walk across the Texas border to Hidalgo, Mexico

Amazingly, Lyttle produced a birth certificate proving his U.S. citizenship. But in today’s heated anti-immigrant atmosphere it didn’t matter. He was processed as undocumented.